The Fiance Dilemma (The Long Game #2)

Chapter Fourteen

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

As a teenager, I never smuggled alcohol out of Mom’s cabinet. She’d sat me down at some point in my early teens and told me that if I ever felt the need to try or was curious about getting drunk, she’d rather be there with me. That Thanksgiving I tried wine and sipped Grandpa Moe’s bourbon. I liked neither, and I remember thinking that day that some of my friends were crazy for risking getting grounded for something that left such a bad taste on your tongue.

Well, things had certainly changed since then.

At the ripe age of twenty-nine years old, I found myself risking something far worse than being grounded for drinking the only booze in the house: a bottle of rosé. The real stuff, not the placebo wine I gave Grandpa Moe after his stroke. I hadn’t meant to hide it, but when I noticed it had somehow been misplaced after I did The Swap, I decided to keep it in the laundry room, right behind the big bottle of detergent. Because a secret stash, even if accidental, always came in handy.

“Josie?” Grandpa Moe called from his room, bringing me to a halt in the middle of the hallway, rosé behind my back.

“Yes?”

“You still up?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t sleep either,” he admitted.

That ball of lead taking up all the space in my chest doubled in weight. “I know.”

There was a pause, and I knew exactly what he was going to say next. “You sure you’re okay?” Another careful pause. “We can talk. I can make you a grilled cheese.”

My fingers tightened around the neck of the bottle. “I’m okay,” I lied. “Plus, it’s past two in the morning. That’s a little late for grilled cheese.”

Silence followed, long enough that I started moving. But then Grandpa said, “I love you, honey. So you holler if you need me, okay?”

It took me a second to speak through the lump in my throat. “Love you too! Good night.”

Closing the door behind me, I didn’t waste any time plopping down right in the middle of the bed and placing the bottle on my nightstand. I still hadn’t decided if I wanted to open it, but I dragged it a little closer. Just in case.

I settled back against the headboard and blinked at the cream wallpaper in front of me. Then I glanced at the sun I’d painted one day, all these years ago, and never covered because it made me smile.

It didn’t tonight. It made me the opposite, and I didn’t have the heart to dissect why.

I didn’t want to think. I wanted to be blank. To be numb. To turn into an inanimate object without overwhelming emotions. I could be a vase. Hold flowers. Bring joy into a room. Breathe that last wisp of life into something meant to sag and shrivel.

That thought had a dark aftertaste. I didn’t like it, but sagging and shriveling seemed to be in the cards for me after all. A frame from the clip that half the country had seen now waltzed across my mind and I shook my head, shoving it away with a scoff.

I eyed the stack of books that had accidentally piled up at the foot of my bed. A spooky thriller, the autobiography of a pop star that promised all the 2000s goss, and a couple of spicy romance novels I’d been dying to read. None of that called out to me right now. I wasn’t exactly in the mood for getting spooked, gossip was a definite nope, and romance… should be the last of my priorities right now.

My gaze flickered to my dresser. The top drawer, where I’d decided to lock my phone. It had been blowing up with so many messages, so many reminders of all the things I didn’t want to think of, so many people asking if I was okay. I wasn’t, and I didn’t want to talk about it. I’d never done this. Ever. I wasn’t the kind of person who needed to retreat after a blow. Not even after Mom’s passing, and definitely not after I’d run away from any man I was supposed to marry.

In those instances, the people I loved brought me the comfort I needed. But not tonight. Tonight, I didn’t want to see Grandpa’s sadness. Or hear about Adalyn’s and Cameron’s concern. My father’s—and Bobbi’s—disappointment.

I was even struggling to face Matthew. Struggling with the concern and the protectiveness on his face after Grandpa had shown us the video. The absolute but silent refusal to go back to the Lazy Elk after we’d driven here. He’d wanted to stay, I’d seen it in his eyes. I’d seen all of that, all of this, overwhelming him too.

Matthew had waited for me to ask him. I wasn’t a fool, but I’d let him leave. Why stay?

I didn’t want to be checked in on tonight. I wasn’t ashamed or embarrassed. I just felt… ugly. Inside. All wrong. Like I wanted to crawl out of my skin and hide under my bed until the world outside my door disappeared.

A sigh erupted out of me, my gaze drifting to the drawer again. Had Matthew texted? Called? Was he at home, watching the video of me making my way up an aisle in a wedding dress, leaving a gasping wedding party and a shocked groom behind, on repeat? Could he tell that I’d been losing it as I ran that velvety rug that separated a sea of chairs? Was he finally realizing that I had issues? That I was messed-up?

Who did that anyway? Sprint, as fast as one can, away from someone you were about to promise to love in sickness and in health. For the rest of your life.

I did. And he’d known. Matthew had. Everyone had known. But it was different to watch it happen. It became undeniable then. Written in stone.

Ugh. Was Venus in retrograde? Was that why I felt so yucky, why all my past relationships festered in a way they never had?

I should draw a bath. Yes. At two a.m. With a new surge of energy, I headed for my en suite and started the water. As hot as possible so the steam could purge all the bad thoughts. I snatched my bath box off the rack and started concocting the perfect recipe. Lavender bath bomb. Wild berry salts. Peppermint essential oil. The tub filled, and I basked in the delicious scents, the change in the atmosphere, the mirror steaming up.

Oh. The rosé.

I snatched the bottle from the nightstand. And a pink mug that would have to serve as a glass from the top of my dresser. I turned around.

My feet stopped me, rooted to the floor.

My phone was inside the dresser.

I told myself to leave. Get in the bath. But the temptation was too strong, and my willpower had always been so weak, so easily overthrown by curiosity. That was why I’d hidden my phone. I sighed. Squared my shoulders. Whirled back around. In a blink, the phone was in my hands.

My gaze fell on the one name in the sea of notifications. I tapped on it. I couldn’t help myself.

MATTHEW: You up?

I chewed my lip in thought. He’d texted only a few minutes ago. Had he been trying to give me space? Was that why he’d only texted now? Was that why he wasn’t asking if I was okay, like everybody else?

“God, Josie,” I muttered, stopping that. I was giving myself a headache.

I could ignore the text. The reasonable thing to do right now was that. Then the bath, then sleep. Phone in hand, I padded back to the bath, set the bottle and phone on the side table I kept by the tub, and undressed. I slipped in, making up my mind: I wasn’t going to reply. I’d soak in my scalding hot water and let all these essential oils melt everything away. Including Matthew’s text.

The screen of my phone lit up. I peeked.

MATTHEW: Knock knock.

I stuck my hand out of the tub and snatched my phone.

JOSIE: Go to sleep.

MATTHEW: You go first.

This was ridiculous. He was ridiculous.

JOSIE: I’m busy.

MATTHEW: Doing what?

JOSIE: Taking a bath.

MATTHEW: I’m calling your bluff.

With a scoff, I snapped a picture, making sure to get my feet peeking out of the water so he’d know it wasn’t a fake, and sent it.

The three dots danced on the screen for so long that I wondered if I was getting a whole paragraph in response. Or maybe nothing at all.

MATTHEW: I’m coming over.

I straightened, water splashing with my sudden move.

JOSIE: What? No. Why?

MATTHEW: Because you left me on read. Because you’re drinking. Because I’m worried. Because you didn’t ask “who’s there?” and that tells me you’re really not okay. Because you didn’t ask me to stay with you tonight.

Everything in me softened, melted, broke. Because you didn’t ask me to stay with you tonight. And I had no choice but to ease back into the water and take a deep breath.

JOSIE: I’m sorry.

JOSIE: I didn’t want to leave you on read.

JOSIE: But you can drop the car keys and slip back into bed. If Grandpa catches a boy sneaking into the house at this hour, I can’t be responsible for what he’ll do.

MATTHEW: I’m your fiancé.

MATTHEW: Not a boy.

I didn’t answer. Not right away. I didn’t know how. Not when my eyes were caught on one specific word and I was feeling this… way.

JOSIE: Knock knock.

I held my breath, waiting. And when his text came, I smiled, a little relieved. It was a small one, probably a sad one too, but it still felt like a reprieve.

MATTHEW: Who’s there?

JOSIE: Dwayne.

MATTHEW: Dwayne who?

JOSIE: Dwayne the wine and the bathtub, I’m drowning! Glug glug.

MATTHEW: That’s not really reassuring me.

I chuckled. I thought it was pretty funny. But just as it came, it went away, both the sentiment and my smile dying off, leaving me… back in the same place.

JOSIE: Tonight was weird. I’m sorry.

MATTHEW: I don’t want or need an apology, Josie.

JOSIE: What do you want or need, then?

MATTHEW: Don’t ask for something you’re not ready to hear.

JOSIE: That’s a good line. Kinda hot.

MATTHEW: I’m finally being noticed, yay.

JOSIE: I’ve always noticed you, Matthew.

When his response took a few moments to come, I shifted in the tub, wanting to take that back.

MATTHEW: Talk to me, Baby Blue. Please?

The nickname caught me off guard. It was almost as if I could see him, hear him saying those words. That concern shining in the brown of his eyes, making it darken, just like it had earlier tonight. I started to type, and suddenly I couldn’t stop.

JOSIE: I don’t want to talk. I locked my phone in a drawer when I got home because I was scared you’d ask me to explain myself. Ask if I was fine. How I felt. But how I feel right now isn’t important. Not in the big scheme of things. So it’s not what I want to be thinking about right now. Because then I’ll think of everything else. Like the reason why I ran that day, or all the other times I was a coward and ruined things, just like I might be ruining everything now, and I’ll be left with nothing. With no one. So no. I don’t want to talk. We’ll dissect the absolute wreck that I am tomorrow. You can fix me some other day. But not today. Not tonight. And not after you called me Baby Blue like that.

MATTHEW: Josie.

MATTHEW: You’re important.

MATTHEW: You have me.

MATTHEW: And there’s nothing about you I want to fix.

MATTHEW: There’s nothing about you that needs fixing.

I stared at the screen. My heart now pounding. Drumming in my ears. Making my chest rise and fall. Heaving. I was heaving, and I couldn’t believe he’d just told me that.

JOSIE: Stop that. Don’t be nice to me.

MATTHEW: Do you want me to be mad? Because I am, but not at you. You don’t need to hide from me. Give me everything that’s making you feel this way. I meant it when I said we would talk later. And I said that before anything happened. That video doesn’t matter.

JOSIE: Of course it matters.

MATTHEW: It doesn’t to me. The only thing that matters right now is you.

The only thing that matters right now is you.

I blinked at the phone, incapable of making sense of the ruckus he was causing in my head, the wreck in my chest. And once more, my fingers were flying over the screen and I was once again talking, just like he wanted. Just like he asked.

JOSIE: I wish you wouldn’t have said that. I wish… we could go back to what we were doing. To what we know how to do. Our rules. Meaningless jokes. Touching and it not meaning anything. You, talking about magic or demanding that I grope your ass. I wish you’d wanted to flirt and distract me, say those things that made me blush, or I don’t know, ask for something outrageous like a nude, just because it’d take my mind off things.

MATTHEW: Nudes. Jokes. A distraction. My dirty mouth. Is that all you want from me, then?

No. I didn’t. Not even close. I didn’t even know why I’d typed that, only that I needed him. Matthew. Not because he was goofy or flirty, but because I desperately needed him in a way I couldn’t explain. In a way that made me scared of losing him if I got too close. Too fast. If I gave him a little too much. If he saw me on that stupid video in such a low moment. But he’d been right. There were things I wasn’t ready to hear. Or perhaps, I simply wasn’t brave enough to admit any of this.

JOSIE: Maybe I do.

MATTHEW: You mean that?

The air was sawing in and out of my lungs now. My skin burning for a reason that had nothing to do with the temperature of the water, or the steam clinging everywhere.

MATTHEW: Do you mean that, Josie?

My heart doubled, tripled its pace.

JOSIE: Yes.

My phone buzzed in my hand. Matthew was calling. I picked up.

“Hi,” I breathed into the line.

Matthew’s answer was immediate, his voice deep, intimate in the silence of the night. “I’ll give you what you need.”

I swallowed. “Matthew—”

“How much wine did you have?”

My laugh was strange. Strangled. Not really a laugh. “None.”

His sigh was deep and relieved. Also a little sad.

“I’m so—” I started.

But he cut me off. “Stop apologizing. I’m not sorry. Not with you.” My lips parted with a question, but he beat me to it again. “Ask me what I’m wearing, Josie.”

My skin flushed warmer still. I hesitated. Just for an instant. But this is what I had asked for, hadn’t I? I’d all but begged him to distract me. Guilt sprouted. He’d already given me so much, and I kept—

“Ask me what I’m wearing, Baby Blue,” he repeated. His voice had changed. Turned a little lighter. Easier. “You’ll like my answer, I promise.”

The guilt started to recede. “What are you wearing?”

“Sweats. No shirt,” he answered. Fast. Diligently. My pulse sped up. “Ask me more.”

“Are you in bed?”

“Yes. More.”

A soft puff of air left me. “Tucked inside or over the covers?”

“I’m sitting, back against my headboard, covers at my feet.”

I hummed. That was a nice visual. I liked it. A little too much. “Are your glasses on?”

Matthew’s husky laugh came through the line, the sound curling around my ears, easing me and awakening a specific part of me. “Is this a kink I should know about?”

“Maybe,” I told him, voice soft.

There was a pause, and an audible swallow. “Tell me what you see.”

“My knees,” I answered. “They’re peeking out of the water. Which is pink. And there’re bubbles.”

“And what do you smell, huh? I’m sure something nice.”

“Essential oils. Lavender, berries, and peppermint.”

He hummed, the sound appreciative and… something else. Something that made me shift in the tub. Anticipation starting to climb up my spine. “What can you feel against your skin, Josie?”

“I…” I wetted my lips. “I can feel everything.” He let out another hum, encouraging me. “The steam and sweat clinging to my shoulders and face. The bubbles, bursting against my arms and chest. My… legs, slippery when I move.”

“Does it feel nice?” he asked, voice tickling my ear it was so deep. “When you move inside that tub you’ve filled with all those wonderful things?”

“Yes,” I answered, and God, I could feel my blood pumping at an increasing rhythm, rising to my face, dropping to my feet.

“Where are your hands, Josie?”

My stomach dipped. “One holding the phone. The other one in the water.”

“Where exactly? Describe it to me. Is it on your thigh? Belly? Chest?”

I swallowed, my eyelids fluttering shut. We were really doing this. He was doing what I’d asked for, and the knowledge, the close approach of the line we were about to cross, made me… breathless. Heady. Hesitate. “Matthew,” I whispered. That’s it. That was all. His name.

“Where,” he repeated. A demand. It made all that doubt melt away. Almost completely. It also made me want to ask him to please bark more demands. Take the reins I didn’t know how to hold. “Close your eyes,” he said, and the way he’d somehow guessed. Known. Read me. Even through the phone, almost made me want to weep. Laugh. “Now.”

My eyelids shut, and I leaned my head back onto the tub rest.

He let out a strained sound as if he could see me. Obedient. Eyes shut. “Now tell me, where’s your hand, Baby Blue?”

Baby Blue. “On my thigh.”

“I want you to bring it up,” he instructed, pulling an exhale out of me. “Can you do that?”

“Yes,” I whispered. “Where?” Another broken breath left me. “How? I—”

“Drag it slowly up your body, letting the tips of your fingers draw a line on your skin. All the way up to your hip, belly, stopping at the swells of your breasts.”

My blood swirled at the clarity of his instructions, the hardness in his voice, how much I loved hearing it. I moved, dragging my hand impossibly slow, every touch, shiver, and caress feeling twice as powerful with my eyes closed and Matthew’s breath in my ear.

“Is it there?” Matthew asked, and I nodded my head with a soft hum. “Good. Now, I want you to take your breast in your hand and do whatever makes you feel good, Josie. I want to hear a little moan. Think you can give me that?”

“I want to. I can try,” I murmured, but when I did I just…

“What’s wrong?” Matthew asked.

“I think we should skip this part,” I said, unsure of what to do or how to do it. “It’s not—”

“Do you want to hear what I’d do? If I was there with you? If it was my hand and not yours?”

“Yes.”

A low grunt left him. “I’d start with my mouth on your jaw. Just a quick nip. A graze of my teeth.” A pause. “That’s not really breaking any rule.”

My lips parted with a yes, a no, I wasn’t sure.

“Then I’d drag it down,” he continued, a shiver curling down the imaginary line. “Right along your neck, nipping at your collarbone, right until every inch of skin on your chest tingled and those nipples hardened under my gaze.”

My blood swooshed down, gathering, pooling, flooding me with need. My thighs pressed. “I’d like that.”

“Like, huh?” he asked with a strange sound. “What if I’d close my lips over that glorious peak? Just a little. Just enough. Just until you’re shaking. Would you like that too?”

My hand moved up, following his lead. Imagining it was him. “Yes.”

“That yes right there, only when you said that would I lift my head and watch your face.” A strangled breath left me at the thought. “Rewarding every one of those with a soft pinch, wanting a little more.”

The words, what they painted in my mind, the sensation of my hand, extricated a whimper from my throat.

Matthew rasped out a laugh. “The idea is killing me too, sweetheart. It’s making me mad with need.”

I wanted that, I realized. I wanted Matthew mad with need. My body, aching with that same urge. The hunger in his voice.

“Keep going,” he grumbled, rustling of clothing in the background. “Don’t stop making it feel good, Josie. That’s what I’d do. Drive you closer and closer to the edge. Drive us both desperate for more.”

My lungs expelled a rough breath, my motions obedient, my need growing. “Matthew?”

“I’m here.”

He wasn’t, though. And that felt so unfair. “I’m—” Something coiled inside me. “I need more. I—”

“Pull your hand down.”

A whimper escaped me.

“Right between your legs. Do that for me.” The command in his voice had me moving, obedient, letting my hand glide down, right where all that pulsing need swirled and gathered. The tips of my fingers brushed the apex of my thighs, and a rocky breath broke out. “That’s not the spot,” Matthew said. “I want to hear you squirm with need. Try again for me.”

Squirm with need. Without him here? Touching me? “I’ll get there,” I told him, moving my hand tentatively over my folds “I want to hear you—”

“You’re going to be a good girl and let me work for those moans.”

My belly cartwheeled, the pulsing under my fingers doubling. I moaned.

“That’s a good fucking girl.”

Oh God.

“Now a little faster,” he instructed. His voice took on an edge, and I moved faster, hearing fabric ruffling. Matthew grunted. “I’m the one getting you off. Understand? My voice. The idea of my touch.”

The motion of my fingers turned more confident, tracing one rough circle after the next. Moving quicker. Just the way I knew would walk me closer and closer. Just the way he wanted me to.

“Yes or no, Josie?”

“Yes.”

“Now give me what I want,” Matthew commanded, and boy, the way his voice broke tipped me a little closer to the edge. “Slip those fingers in,” he instructed. “Make us both feel good.”

My fingers glided right in, a loud moan toppling from my lips.

“That fucking sound,” he all but growled. “The things I’d do for it. The things I’m doing, Josie. The things I’ll do if you ask.”

“Matthew?” I called, feeling my cheeks burn, my body heating impossibly high, the sound of water splashing. “Oh God. I—” My words cut off, need building up, climbing, rising, feeling like too much.

“Keep going,” he rasped, a groan escaping between gulps of air. “Thrust a little deeper.” Sweet baby Jesus, was he stroking himself? Oh God—Matthew grunted again. “Touching is good, isn’t it, Josie? No rules are being broken, now give me what I need. Let go. Give your fiancé a little scream. Tell me who’s making the fucking world disappear.”

Give your fiancé a little scream.

Tell me who’s making the fucking world disappear.

It was that, all of it, all at once, that made the tension gripping my body break. Say my name. My eyelids fluttered closed and that wave of heat I’d been riding crashed.

“Matthew,” I expelled, spasms traveling through my body. Oh boy. Oh man. I was flying. Coming so desperately hard that I—

“Josie?” came with a knock.

My whole body flinched, my hands flying up.

The phone, loose in my hand, slipped, dropping into the water.

“No!” I yelped.

“Josie,” Grandpa Moe repeated. “Is something wrong in there?”

Everything was. “Everything’s good!” I shouted, fishing my phone out of the water. The screen was black. Shit. Crap. “I’m taking a bath,” I explained, jumping out of the tub and wrapping the device in a towel. “I’m… relaxing?” I shook my head. “Affirmative. I am relaxing. Why?”

There was a beat of silence. “I heard you talking.”

“I was talking to myself,” I answered quickly. I squinted my eyes closed, silently cursing. “Rambling. Singing.” Singing? “Did you need anything?”

Grandpa Moe grumbled. “Just checking on you is all. I saw light under the door.”

I sagged with a breath. “I’m all right.”

“You sure you’re okay?” Grandpa Moe insisted.

“I will be,” I admitted.

Maybe once I brought my phone back to life and texted Matthew, before he panicked and thought I’d died, victim of the incredible orgasm he’d just guided me through.

Or maybe I wouldn’t be okay at all.

Not when it dawned on me what Matthew and I had just done.